Happy Hallowe'en...Happy Samhain....

{Fog/mist descending around the outbuildings a few weeks back} 

Halloween is here. 

I almost typed "finally," but caught myself.

The truth is, I never want Halloween to come.

I just want it to always be October.

Perhaps that is why I never actually finish my decorating or preparations for Halloween?

In any event, I wanted to at least pop in to say I hope you are wrapping yourself in the last of autumn...the quiet spirit that seems to descend and envelop the landscape and the rooms we pass through.

I had hoped to share more of my "preparations" for the holiday, but the days slipped through my hands. 

I count it as a good thing this time of year, though, as I know I was hearing the crunch of the leaves beneath me, smelling the mellowing earth fold into itself and watching the moon dance.

I will leave you with a very abbreviated version of some of my (real...unlike the faux-vintage treat boxes in the last post) vintage Halloween treasures.

Most of you know that I generally embrace a primitive/colonial style.

But when it comes to Halloween, I can't help but let vintage in.

I have an October soul and those colors, those graphics, those echoes of simpler times are irresistible. 

One of my main weaknesses: Pulp paper/papier mache Jack-o-Lanterns:

I have battery-operated candles in many of them, so they twinkle at night. 

Two of my favorites:

{Who doesn't love a cat face??}

{My only "two-faced" jack (he has a face on both sides)}

And I have a penchant for vintage noisemakers...

This year I displayed my horns mostly among the jacks but think I'll re-think that next year.

Dye cuts and honeycomb:

Vintage candy tins and boxes (and who doesn't need a case of embalming fluid??): 

Oh...there's more... 

Vintage Halloween books, framed vintage Halloween sheet music, 

pulp paper owls, Gurley candles, and....

I'll leave it at that...and this for now. 

I've only a bit more than 2 hours before October draws its final breath.

They say the veil between this world and the other thins then and, perhaps, it does. 

The shadows here have darkened and the sounds of this old house have quieted as if listening for something I cannot yet hear.

 But each year I gather more ghosts so I think I, too, need to listen.

Wishing you light in the dark corners of the night.

Happy Halloween.

It's That Strange Time of Year....

It's that strange time of year...

 

...when tantalizing wisps of warmer air whisper to the frozen ground that it's time to go and eerie fog settles like tears....

...when sudden snow squalls can't silence the song of the spring birds as they feast on berries of bittersweet....

It's that strange time of year when, each and EVERY morning, some of us still think we have been gypped out of an hour of sleep thanks to "daylight saving time"....

 ...and we be none too happy about it....

And it's that strange time of year when the calendar, without fanfare or ceremony, flips on another year of my life....

I always feel "untethered" in this "twixt" time.  Like Mother Nature who does not quite know if it should be winter or spring, I do not quite know what it is I want to do.

Hooking? Maybe.

Stitching?? Maybe.

More likely just cursing daylight saving time AGAIN because I am not tired at the time the clock says I really need to go to bed. (So, yes, I really feel cheated out of two hours of sleep every day....the clock says it's an hour later than it should be when I get up and it says it's an hour later than it should be when I go to bed. My head is a scary place most days.)

In other words, I have gotten little to nothing of anything done.

I put aside my large(r) Noel Sampler I had been off and on stitching on (more off than on) and worked on a teeny little piece called "Winter Woods" by Chessie & Me.  The stitching is almost done except for another large snowflake and then nun stitching on the sides.

My hook I have picked up not at all.

It is windy and cold, with spurts of flurries coming from the lifelessly gray sky.  I'm off to see if I can revive Hepzibah (my sourdough starter) so I can make sourdough cinnamon cranberry bread.

I hope there is a corner of each of your worlds where you can find some peace and hope in  these troubling times.

 *******

Recently read:

If you haven't figured it out yet, one of my favorite genres of books is historical fiction: Two of my particularly favorite time periods are, of course, 17th century Salem and World War II.  The downfall is that many of the plots tend to follow a very predictable path and one story becomes unremarkably similar to others.

In some regard, this can be said of this book, but it was relatively fresh to the market and I couldn't resist.

 It is the story Jewish mother and daughter who flee from the war raging in Poland and go into hiding in a neighboring barn.  Above that, it is the story of the bond between a mother and a daughter and of the precious gifts of imagination and music.

While I, at one point, took violin lessons (another surprising piece of trivia I bet you didn't know), the music detail in this book was a bit much for my taste.  (Kinda like The Book of Two Ways mentioned a few posts back may have been to much "Egyptology" for some....)  Despite that, I enjoyed it. (But hey, if you haven't figured it out by now, I really enjoy most all books.)  It is not one that will earn a rank among my favorites, but that's a very selective list.    

  

*******

The Two Seasons of Nod

In Nod, we have two seasons:  Winter and June

 We went from 29° to 95° in just over a week's time.

June has arrived as impetuously as a spoiled child.

But she is, after all, June:  The adolescent youth of Summer...mischievous, unpredictable, and oh so winsome and cunning.

And so now it is time to attend to the joys of June:

The riot of blooms that seemingly appear overnight - old friends well welcomed after a long winter's absence...

The impossible cloud formations that only June can imagine...

Unexpected visits as though June put out her own welcome sign...

The smell of fresh-cut hay...

The chorus of frogs orchestrated by Mother Nature each evening at nightfall...weather permitting...

The fog that settles over the low lands in the late humid evenings...

Paths and walkways wrapped in verdure...

Do not grow up too quickly June!